The Second Child
by Kairikiani
Summary: Hanabi defeated fate. But only temporarily.


Author's Note: A short character study of Hanabi, given what little we know about her and her clan. I wrote this before I read the World War arc, so there are certain obvious divergences from canon.

* * *

_When people feel fear strongly enough_

_it leaves an echo in the air_

_like a silent scream_

Hanabi had never truly lived with her sister. By the time Hanabi was four years old, Hiashi had already taken pains to separate the two. Their rooms were placed on opposite sides of the compound. Their training sessions were at different times. They weren't even allowed to eat together.

Perhaps "allowed" was not the right word. After all, Hiashi never explicitly forbade Hanabi from talking to her sister. But though she was a child, it didn't mean she was blind. Hanabi had seen Hinata in the halls. Her sister was deathly pale, and her eyes were hidden by a curtain of slick black hair. She reminded Hanabi of the _onryo_ she had seen in storybooks. Hinata reminded the other clan members of a spirit too, judging from the way they averted their eyes when she passed.

Even her father, the most fearless man Hanabi knew, got a dull look of dread whenever he was called to train Hinata. He would get up, meet Hinata by the door, and then slowly walk her down the hall. He always looked straight ahead, as though he were afraid to look at the girl in his shadow. And though the servants would tell Hanabi that everything was fine, she knew better.

There was something very dangerous about Hinata.

_The worst kind of ghost_

_is the one that everyone can see_

When Hanabi grew old enough to use Byakugan, she used her eyes like flashlights. Whenever she needed to leave her bedroom, she would pour all of her energy into her eyes. Then she'd stare through her door, checking to see if the halls were clear. If her sister was nearby, she walked the other way – quietly though, so as not to attract attention. And if Hinata was too close to avoid, Hanabi would keep her body very still and hold her breath, waiting until her sister passed.

Seasons changed. Hinata grew paler. Hanabi grew stronger. Their father's eyes grew colder. As time passed, the air hummed louder and louder with gossip. Eventually Hanabi could walk up and down the corridors and hear whispering in every room. Even in the middle of the night, when Hanabi was supposed to be fast asleep, she could hear fearful murmuring through the walls.

Something strange was going to happen soon.

_When a warrior has escaped death_

_they can feel a small crackling in the air_

_as if fate itself was burning_

Hanabi was only six years old when she ruined her sister's life. She hadn't meant to. She hadn't even known what was going on.

Her father had called her to the training room after supper. As Hanabi had walked in, she saw Hinata kneeling on a training mat. There was no moon out tonight, so the only light in the room was the lanterns by the door. The flickering candles made her sister's skin seem white, almost translucent. For a brief, childish moment, Hanabi wondered if Hinata really was a ghost.

Before Hanabi could run, her father motioned for her to kneel on the training mat opposite Hinata's. He then told her that she would be sparring against Hinata that day. They were to both try their best and not hold back. The two sisters stood up, bowed to each other, and then rushed forward to fight.

The fight was easier than Hanabi expected. Though Hinata was larger, Hanabi was faster and stronger. It was easy to maneuver around her sister's clumsy strikes, and easier still to strike her tenkutsu points. Was this really the girl Hanabi had been hiding from all these past years?

Hanabi was just beginning to enjoy herself when Hiashi yelled for the fight to stop. Anger was rolling off him in waves. Hanabi felt her body grow cold. Had she made a mistake in her form? Then she looked up and saw Hinata's eyes. They were practically glowing with fear.

In a cold voice that Hanabi would never forget, their father declared Hinata to be a lost cause. Hanabi would be the new heiress and receive his training from now on. As he spoke, Hinata's eyes glazed over. She folded into herself without a word.

When their father finished his speech, he dismissed Hinata. Then he turned to Hanabi. In a strangely gentle voice, he told her that she had done a good job.

It was the first time her father had ever smiled at her.

_They say a father loves most _

_the child who is least like him_

As it turns out, Hanabi's father did not have the authority to make her the heiress. Though Hanabi was stronger and faster, Hinata was something called "the firstborn". Hanabi didn't understand what being older had to do with being a good leader, but her father said that was the way things go.

Typically, the oldest child was the strongest and the smartest. Thus, they were trained to lead the clan. Any other siblings were assigned to the branch clan and became servants. The eldest child led, and the younger ones obeyed. Such was the natural order of things.

But her father told her that nature sometimes made mistakes. Hinata was weak. Indecisive. Cowardly. She had the soul of a servant. But Hanabi was a leader at heart. And with her father's help, she would become strong enough to convince the elders who the truly deserved to be heiress.

However, simply being better than Hinata wouldn't be enough. She would have to undergo grueling training to learn the clan techniques. She would have to be calm and collected at all times, so that none of the elders doubted her maturity. She would have to be stronger and smarter and braver and more dedicated than any heiress before her.

In short, Hanabi would have to be perfect. Only then could her father save her.

_If you work towards your dreams with your whole heart_

_you will live a rich, happy life._

Every day for Hanabi was essentially the same. She woke up at 6, ate breakfast, then spent the early morning with a private tutor. During the later morning, her father taught her the clan techniques. At noon she took a quick break for lunch. She spent the afternoons reviewing her basic jutsus and doing stamina training, and the evenings practicing her etiquette. 8 hours of sleep later, she woke up and did it all again.

The only exception was Sundays. That was the day when Hanabi was told to rest. "It's necessary"_,_ everyone told her. "Humans can't work all the time." Those were lies, of course. The truth was that her tutors both had families to take care of and her father had clan meetings that day. Nobody had time for Hanabi, so they dropped her like a doll and told her to take care of herself.

Hanabi hated Sundays. Not because she was lonely – she was seven years old, after all. Practically grown up. No, the reason she hated Sundays was because they didn't feel like days at all – just gaps in her life that she had to wait through. As she lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, she could feel her muscles growing soft. She felt like she was falling down a slope, and that the longer she lay there, the more of her training she forgot.

When Hanabi tried explaining this to the adults, they told her to go out and play. But the only game Hanabi knew was tag, and that was much too loud to play at home. Besides, there weren't any children Hanabi's age inside the compound, so she didn't even have anyone to chase. It was far better to just wait quietly in her bed. That way she could conserve energy for the next day's training.

And so Hanabi only truly lived for six days of the week.

_A leaf on the tree will stay on the tree_

_but a leaf in the wind will rise_

When Hanabi heard that Neji had nearly killed her sister in the chuunin exams, she didn't feel any anger towards him. She didn't feel pity for Hinata either. All she could feel was cold relief settling in between her chest and her stomach. If Hinata was in the hospital, that meant she would take weeks, maybe months off from practice. Months Hanabi could use to get even further ahead in her training.

It wasn't that Hanabi hated her sister. On the few occasions they had spoken, Hinata had seemed agreeable. Even likeable, in a bland sort of way. But Hinata was her rival, so Hanabi couldn't bring herself to love her sister either.

Hanabi couldn't really put a name to what she felt about her sister. If she had been forced to explain it in words, she would have compared it to the time her father had taught her to walk on water. The lake had been so clear that Hanabi could see all the way to the bottom. The floor was miles below her and covered in jagged rocks. Consciously, Hanabi knew that she would have to sink for a long time before hitting the sharp spikes. But she couldn't stop staring at them. She felt like if she were to take her eye on them for a second, she might sink without realizing it and find the rocks piercing her feet.

Not that Hanabi would ever sink to Hinata's level. Hinata no longer bothered showing her face at the Hyuuga training grounds. Instead she went out into a muddy field with her teammates and trained under the sliver of a moon. There, according to some rather gossipy Branch members, they learned each other's fighting styles and came up with hybrid jutsus. A candidate for Hyuuga heiress, training in other clans' styles. Hanabi would be scandalized if she didn't find it so pathetic.

Really, Hanabi had nothing to be afraid of.

_They say a wise man will embrace his past_

_even if it holds him down for the rest of time_

_It's no surprise then that there are very few wise men with dreams_

The first time Hanabi felt killing intent was during the chuunin exams. To be specific, it was directed at her father, but Hanabi felt a few spikes of hate rebound in her direction. Neji had just emptied the family's dirty laundry in front of a whole stadium of people. Though few people in Konoha were surprised, most of the foreign ninja hadn't known the story of the Hyuuga twins. Hundreds of appalled eyes glowered at Hanabi and her father.

Hanabi looked up. Her father's eyes were staring straight ahead, and his body was as stiff as stone. He almost looked…ashamed. Hanabi resisted the urge to glare at everyone in the stadium.

Her father had done nothing wrong. It was unfortunate that Neji's father had died, but it had been unavoidable. The Branch Members were born to protect the clan's bloodlimit – that was their purpose in life. Hanabi's father had simply allowed his brother to fulfill his duty.

If anything, her uncle's death was a fitting punishment. The Branch House was meant to protect the main house. If they had been doing their job correctly, her father wouldn't have had to kill anyone. It was only fair that her uncle take the blame for his own failure.

And why was no one glaring at the Cloud ninja? They were the ones who attacked first. They had demanded the body. And they had been the ones who were too incompetent to tell a branch member from an heir.

And Hinata. She hadn't done anything wrong, true, but she was ultimately the cause of all this. If she hadn't gotten herself kidnapped, not a single person would have had to die.

Hanabi laced her hand around her father's fingers. If he felt it, he didn't react. He simply stared into space, lost in his own memories. His mind was in a time and a place where Hanabi didn't exist.

Hanabi held on to his hand anyway.

_Betrayal is in the eye of the beholder_

When Hanabi learned that her father had decided to train Neji, her world cracked a little. Why would he waste precious hours of the day training a Branch member when he could be training her? Was he being blackmailed? Was it part of negotiations with the Branch house? Or had guilt completely clouded his judgment?

One sunny day, when Neji and her father were training, Hanabi decided to investigate. She snuck behind a wall, activated her Byakugan, and watched the two spar. They whirled around each other like a storm. They were a blur of chakra and limbs, so fast that Hanabi's eyes could barely keep up. It scared her, how fast they were.

Worse yet were her father's eyes. They were sharp with pride, but also strangely warm. Hanabi had only seen her father wear that expression two times in her life. The first, when she had defeated Hinata in sparring. The second, when she had learned to walk on water at age seven. Each moment had only lasted a few precious seconds. But her father and Neji had been sparring for half an hour, and the expression hadn't left his eyes once.

When the training session was done, Hanabi met her father in the hall. If her presence surprised him, he showed no sign. He looked down at her with slightly impatient eyes and asked her what she wanted.

Hanabi had meant simply to ask her father what his plans with Neji were. Instead, she found herself calling Neji's training a waste of time. She talked about how Neji was only a Branch member and could never truly master the Hyuuga techniques. He was nobody important, or at least, not important enough to get in trouble with the elders over. On and on she went, words pouring out of her mouth so quickly that she could hardly catch her breath.

When Hanabi mentioned her uncle, her father slapped her. The sentence died on her lips. The left side of her face burned. In an icy voice, her father said that true heiresses did not speak of their relatives in such a manner. If Hanabi ever questioned her father's judgment again, then he would reconsider the time he spent training her.

After that conversation, Hanabi's voice didn't work for five whole days.

_A thrown dagger travels slowly up_

_but falls quickly to its target_

It began with the little things. A misstep in her form. A brief lapse in concentration during her etiquette lessons. An off-target jyuuken strike. Small mistakes. Hardly worth noticing on their own.

It grew worse. Hanabi's strikes missed more and more. She started needing short breaks in the middle of training. Her father lectured her on the value of diligence and effort, but no matter how hard Hanabi pushed herself, her performance grew worse. It was only after she passed out during sparring that anyone thought to call a doctor.

The doctor told her father that she was overworked and that she would be fine with rest. So Hanabi spent the next several days in the compound, doing nothing but attending meals and sleeping. But the more she slept, the more tired she felt. After an entire week spent in bed, she decided that she would never stop feeling tired and went back to training.

Her father was patient at first. But as time wore on, he began to cut their lessons short. He needed to catch up on paperwork, he'd say. Or to teach Neji the basics of Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm. Or to discuss finances with the clan elders.

He needed to be anywhere but here, watching his prodigy daughter fade into adequacy.

_The gentle touch_

_is often the cruelest_

The day of Hinata's jonin exam, the dining hall was deathly quiet. Her father and the elders had gone to watch, so Hanabi was the sole person at the Head table. The Branch members sat at the side tables, crowded shoulder to shoulder. They bowed their heads so that their hair covered their faces. But though Hanabi couldn't see their eyes, she could feel their stares.

Hanabi ignored them and focused on her rice. Everything was going to be all right. The test meant nothing if Hinata didn't pass. And there was no way someone as weak and lazy as her sister could rank jonin. She hadn't even mastered the Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms. Hanabi hadn't either, but she was definitely closer to learning it than someone who trained with dogs and bugs.

Hanabi finished her dinner and walked towards the door. Neji stood up and informed her that she was forgetting something. He pointed to her dirty plate.

She told him that cleaning was a Branch member's job. Neji replied that this was why Hanabi needed to learn it.

Hanabi threatened to tell her father about his insubordination if he continued treating her like this. Neji paused, then walked over to the kitchen in the next room and turned on the sink. He shouted dish-washing instructions over the sound of running water. Her hands twitched, begging her to form the curse seal and put her cousin in his place.

As Hanabi forced her hands to her sides, everyone in the room heard a creak. The front door of the compound had opened. Everyone turned their heads towards the sound, Byakugans activated. Hinata's chakra signature was in the doorway, surrounded by the chakras of the clan elders.

Everyone sprinted through the house and into the entryway. Hinata gave a small jolt of surprise. Her coat was in tatters, and her forehead was wrapped in bandages. The blood on her fingernails seemed almost purple under the light of the half moon. She peered woozily over the members of the Branch House. They stared silently back at her.

She smiled, then murmured that she'd passed. Everyone cheered. Their father placed his hands on Hinata's shoulders, looking prouder than Hanabi had ever seen him.

As the clan rejoiced, Hanabi heard distant water rushing down the drain.

_In a perfect world_

_victory would go to the person who needed it most_

Nothing was official yet. The council of elders would not choose which sister would become the heiress until Hinata turned 18. But their decision would only be a formality.

It was midnight, one month after Hinata's jonin exam. After checking that everyone was asleep, Hanabi walked across the compound to her sister's room. She didn't even need to knock before Hinata opened the door. Hanabi only said two words: "Fight me."

Hinata didn't ask any silly questions, such as, "Why?" or "Right now?" She simply got dressed and followed Hanabi to the courtyard furthest from the main building. A waxing moon illuminated the plain dirt field. The sisters walked to the middle. They bowed. They began.

They hit each other at the same time, their forearms ricocheting off each other. They jumped back, then went at it again, matching each other stroke for stroke. But then Hinata began to fight strangely. She kicked when she should have jabbed. She dodged when most Hyuugas would block. Her fighting style threw Hanabi's usual tactics right out the window.

Hinata knocked Hanabi down with a strike to the stomach. Hanabi pushed herself up. They fought again. She fell again. She stood up again. And on and on, until Hanabi knew she was one hit away from collapse. She rushed forward, putting all her chakra into one final strike.

One second, Hinata was standing perfectly still. The next, her arms rotated in a haze of after-images. A hundred needles of chakra pierced Hanabi's skin. She felt herself falling backwards, down into darkness.

When Hanabi woke up, her chest felt strangely warm. She opened her eyes and saw her sister's hands hovering over her body, glowing green with healing chakra. Hanabi rolled away and sat up. The sisters stared at each other.

Her sister apologized. Hanabi asked if Hinata was sorry enough to let her be heiress. Hinata bowed her head and didn't answer.

Hanabi told her sister not to waste her breath on apologies she didn't plan on following through. If she was really sorry for stealing Hanabi's inheritance, then there was only one way to make up for it:

To live Hanabi's life better than she herself could.

_A name is a soul_

_put into sound_

The night the elders declared Hinata heiress, the clan had a huge celebration. The members of the main house strode around the clan gardens, admiring each other's robes and plucking sake glasses from the servants' trays. Hinata stood by their father and chatted with guests. Technically Hanabi was supposed to be entertaining guests as well, but nobody noticed her absence.

Instead, she sat alone on the roof of the training hall. Several members of the Branch house had gone to the sparring fields and were setting off fireworks. Hanabi watched as the rockets flared up into the night sky. They burst into spheres of red and blue and gold. The colors faded, leaving behind a cloud of smoke.

Hanabi had always hated her namesake. They were flashy and loud and smoky and always ended too soon. She supposed her mother meant well when she chose the name. Perhaps she intended her daughter to have a life full of celebration and fun. For Hanabi, though, the name always had the taste of an omen.

Another firework went up, then faded under the light of the full moon. Hanabi wasn't sure what she would do with herself after tonight. Everyone her age had graduated from the Academy a year ago, so she couldn't join a genin team. She didn't know anyone outside the compound, so taking on a civilian job wasn't an option either.

Most likely her father would put her to work with the Branch House members. She'd scrub and sweep and polish all day, making sure her sister never had to waste any of her precious time cleaning. If Hanabi was lucky, Hinata would let her be a tutor for the younger Hyuuga children. But even then, Hanabi knew she would quickly forget most of her training. After a few years of scrubbing floors and teaching toddlers how to kick, her mind and body would be like that of a servant's. Just how she was always meant to be.

But she'd been an heiress once. A good one too.

And that was better than having never been anything at all.

* * *

Author's Note: So…that's it. I guess you could call this my hate-letter to Hiashi. Personally, he seems a very fickle parent. He's good to Hinata when she's his only heir, but when a stronger daughter comes along, he pretty much dumps her on the wayside. In parts I and II, he constantly insults Hinata with "concerns" such as "Don't be a burden" or "Did you fail another mission?" And when he's not insulting her, he's dumping her training on her teammates and his nephew. During Part III, he mostly seems to ignore her. When he makes Neji the clan general, he doesn't spend a single second explaining his reasoning to Hinata, leaving the freaking Hokage to do his parenting for him. The only times Hiashi seems to give two flips about her are whenever her eyes are about to be stolen by a rival village.

Of course, now that even the major villains of the story acknowledge her power, Hiashi's changed his tune from "My daughter's a failure" to "I always knew she was strong; she just lacked willpower." Since Neji's kicked the bucket, it looks like Hinata will be the clan leader. After the war, Hiashi will inevitably dub Hinata his official heir, and everyone will act like he's finally turned over a new leaf. But really, he's just going jumping on the bandwagon of whichever young Hyuuga seems to be the strongest. Just like he always has.

Sorry for the rant. I just had to get that off my chest. As always, reviews/critiques/rants are appreciated.


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